1. Field of Use
The present invention pertains to electronic mail systems and, in particular, to a method for automatically converting documents from a first format into a second format preferred by a recipient.
2. Prior Art
The common use of word processing programs and electronic mail systems has resulted in a recurring problem arising from the differing document formats used by the various word processing programs.
It is frequently found that the originator of a document prefers a different word processor from that preferred by the intended recipient of the document, and that it is difficult for the recipient to read or handle the document in any meaningful manner because of the document format differences. This has been alleviated somewhat for very local communications of documents, for example, within a single department, by decreeing that all users within the department will use the same word processing program.
Decreeing a common document format is usually not feasible, over larger and more diverse groups, however, resulting in the use of document conversion utilities to convert documents from one format to another.
This general approach has not been satisfactory, however, in that the systems of the prior art have required the recipient of documents to perform a separate and individual conversion process on each document received, resulting in a substantial waste of the users time merely because of the differences between document formats.
The method of the present invention addresses this and other problems of the systems of the prior art.